Reading the Blood Film: Inclusions

What this deck covers

Reading the Blood Film: Inclusions in twelve illustrated clinical cases with worked explanations – case presentations built around clinical images, radiology, teaching illustrations and real laboratory data, with the reference range beside every value a case quotes. This visual, data-interpretation style of practice suits candidates preparing for MRCPCH AKP in particular, alongside Saudi and Gulf licensing examinations such as the Arab Board, DHA and OMSB. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong.

The twelve cases, in order

1. One dense body in the cell
2. Dots, and evenly spread
3. A ring inside the cell
4. Angular material inside
5. Pushed against the membrane
6. Nothing on the first film
7. Which cell is it in
8. In focus, or on top
9. On the glass as well
10. One, or more than one
11. Two kinds on one film
12. Saying how often

What this deck teaches

• Describe the object, not its name. Round or angular, one or many, central or at the rim, and what stain showed it. Each of those survives a change of diagnosis.
• Where in the cell it sits is part of the description. A body pressed against the membrane and a body in the middle are different observations, and the difference costs nothing to record.
• How many per cell, and in how many cells. One inclusion in one cell per field and several in a third of the cells are different films, and the words are the same until you add the numbers.
• Some inclusions need their own stain. A routine film that shows nothing has not excluded them. It has only shown that this stain does not display them.
• Read which cell you are looking at first. An inclusion in a neutrophil and an inclusion in a red cell mean entirely different things, and the cell is the easier of the two to identify.
• Focus is the artefact check. Stain deposit sits on top of the film, so it comes into focus at a different depth from the cell it appears to lie in.

Exam pearls from this deck

• Say what it looks like and where it is. The name can follow.
• The distribution is the finding, not the presence of dots.

The twelve worked cases in this deck, with the images and the full explanation of every option, are part of Pediatric Case Review membership. See what is included, or start with the free Pediatric Exam Review Sets.

More from this system: all haematology illustrated case decks · haematology board questions for bank-style drilling · the free Pediatric Exam Review Sets · pediatric reference values.